"Everything to Lose" (William Morrow), by Andrew Gross

How far would you go to protect your loved ones? What if keeping your special needs child in an expensive, properly caring environment meant having to break the law? Would you do it?

Author Andrew Gross forces readers to grapple with the extremes one must go through to survive in such a situation in his new novel, "Everything to Lose."

Hilary Cantor is divorced, and her deadbeat husband doesn't pay his child support. Their son, Brandon, is autistic, and the school he attends is very expensive. Hilary becomes desperate after she loses her job. How will she pay for her child's schooling?

She witnesses a car crash while driving home one afternoon. The car slides down a ravine. Hilary climbs and scratches her way to the car, where she discovers a dead man and a satchel filled with money. She tosses the bag into a bush and leaves.

As time passes, Hilary cannot grasp the financial collapse that is about to hit her. She goes back to the site of the crash and finds the money. She begins to use just enough to pay her bills. What she doesn't realize is that someone was expecting the money — and will do anything to find it.

"Everything to Lose" will grab readers from the book's opening pages.